This is not the kind of statement that produces narrative satisfaction — it doesn’t resolve the tension between the hitman father and the Oscar-nominated son, because that tension doesn’t resolve. It’s the kind of statement that a thoughtful person makes about a biographical fact that is genuinely complicated: here is what it was, here is what I did about it, here is what I don’t know. The remaining unknowns stay unknown. The life goes on.
It has gone on for sixty-five years now. He was born in 1961 in Midland, Texas, the middle son of Charles and Diane Harrelson. His father left when he was seven. He grew up poor, in Ohio, raised by his mother. He went to college, studied theater, moved to New York, worked as an understudy, got cast on Cheers, became one of the most recognizable actors on American television, made films that earned three Academy Award nominations across more than two decades, married a woman he loves and had three daughters with her, moved to Maui, advocated for the causes he cares about, practiced jiu-jitsu, played chess, and continued to work.
He also, in the middle of all of that, visited his father in federal prison approximately once a year for two decades, spent approximately two million dollars trying to get him a new trial, stood in at his proxy wedding, and described him — honestly, by his own account — as one of the most charming and well-read people he had ever known. The father died in prison in 2007, the conviction intact.